Mark received a letter in the mail saying he was owed several hundred dollars from the state of Florida. For the price of $49, the sender would help him collect his money.

Were you afraid it was a scam?

“Yeah," Mark said. "They were asking for power of attorney, and that sent up a bunch of red flags.”

Bottom line, Mark is legitimately owed money from the state of Florida where he had previously lived and worked. The letter? It was from a middle man saying he’d do the work and help mark collect the cash and it was real too.

But who needs a middle man? Back to Mark’s story and how much he’s due in a moment, but first, how can you track down money owed to you without a middle man?

It’s worth it to look, in fiscal year 2016-17 here in NC, there were 50,685 claims made for money, and the state returned $38,137,409 to citizens just like you. If you live here in North Carolina, just go to nctreasurer.com, then click on the blue box upper right that says “NC cash program.”

In the dropdown menu choose “search for unclaimed cash or property." In the box, put in your last name and city. I searched “McGinty” and found nine people in the charlotte area with my last name and they are all owed money, sadly, I’m not one of them.

Back to Mark and his story, he did the same thing on the Florida site and confirmed he had $309 waiting for him. He entered his personal information to confirm who he was and that was it!

Mark says “I’m going to get it, but there is a lag time, it’s going through processing and will take four to six weeks, but the real story here is that people can do it for free.”

If you have moved a lot, check every state you’ve lived since you began working. You might get back as little as $20, or hundreds like Mark.